Colombia pulled off a spectacular rescue

Now, can Congress pull off its own rescue of U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement?

The spectacularly successful rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other Colombian hostages, including three Americans, ought to persuade congressional Democrats to pass the long delayed U.S.Colombian trade agreement. Passage of the trade bill, bottled up in Congress, ought to demonstrate that the United States supports the Colombian democracy in a part of the world where the United States doesn't have many admirers.

The rescue of the hostages was a feat carried off with the sort of bravura worthy of a James Bond film. Without a shot being fired, a team of Colombian soldiers posing as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the decades-old guerrilla force known by its Spanish acronym FARC, managed to pull off a ruse on the rebel forces. The team arrived with helicopters painted white under the story that the hostages, including Betancourt, the Colombian-French woman who was campaigning for the presidency in 2002 when she was taken hostage, were being moved in connection with negotiations for a hostage release. As soon as the aircraft lifted off the ground, the team announced to the 15 hostages that they were free.

The ruse was a hard blow to the guerrilla group which had in past years virtually ruled autonomous regions of Colombia, but which now has been pushed hard by the government of Alvaro Uribe to the fringes of Colombia. And the triumph of the rescue operation was an enormous boost for the government that has made great progress, not only against the leftist rebels, but also in making a case that it can be just as tough against armed right-wing groups. The threat posed by these right-wing groups against labor unionists is cited by congressional Democrats for the hold-up of the Colombia trade deal.

The Uribe government earlier this year extradited 14 right-wing paramilitary leaders to the United States for prosecution on drug-trafficking charges. The extradition of the right-wing leaders was a strong signal from Uribe that his government is capable of moving not only against the leftists, which his government has fighting for years, but also against the right, to which his own ideology is more attuned.

The rescue of the hostages, acknowledged to be the most valuable of the hundreds of hostages held by the FARC, and the extradition of the right-wing leaders might seem to underscore the stability of the Colombia government. Only a few short years ago Colombia seemed to be teetering on the verge of collapse. The country was in the control of drug criminals, and guerrillas were targeting every symbol of the country's institutions from teachers to judges, and right-wing paramilitary groups were murdering trade union leaders with impunity.

Now the guerrilla movement is on the run. Its long-time leader recently died of a heart attack and its second-in-command was killed in a raid on a camp in Ecuador. Even Hugo Chavez, the leftist president of Venezuela, has urged the FARC to put down their weapons. This might be a good time for the United States to show that it stands with its democratic allies in the region, principally Colombia.

But congressional Democrats have been using trade bills as handy punching bags for the economic woes of the United States. Democrats, to their shame, have lost any ardor for free trade; it's been a long time since Bill Clinton made free trade the hallmark of his presidency. That's too bad for free trade, and even worse luck for American exporters. Colombia enjoys low-tariffs on its exports to the United States, but the trade deal would remove tariff for American exports to Colombia.

The Colombians pulled off a triumph in their rescue of the hostages. The United States ought to stand with Colombia at the time of its signal victory, but for the Democratic antipathy for trade.